Adriana Trigiani, REUNION BEACH

[1:48]Zibby Owens: But at that time, I was like going to the guy at Joe and the Juice behind the counter asking him to vote for me and anyone I could. So now I'm coming to all of you to ask you to please vote for moms don't have time to read books to win the People's Choice Webby Award for Best Live Podcast. If you go to vote.webbyawards.com, again, that's vote.webbywebbyawards.com. And then go to the little magnifying glass search thing on the upper right. All you have to type in is search by name or entry and just type in moms and it will come up. And then you can click on the best live podcast recording nominee and vote for me. Also, the way, won honoree for best influencer, which is crazy. Anyway, thank you for voting. I really, really would appreciate it. I would love to win the People's Voice Award, especially after trying so hard and failing two years ago. So if you could just take a few minutes and vote, I would be so grateful. You could email me after if you want at infosivvyowens dot com. And I will say thank you to you via email myself because I'm so grateful. So email me if you've done it, post about it. I'm just I would be so grateful. Thank you. Hi.

[3:42]Zibby Owens: Adriana Chigiani. I interviewed her today for Reunion Beach stories inspired by Dorothea Benton Frank. However, I first met Adrianna when she came to my Valentine's Day event, which I hosted in person back before the pandemic at Dylan's Candy Bar. And when she walked in, the seas parted, and then everybody made a mad dash over to her. And I was like, oh my gosh. So anyway, I'm really excited to talk to her today and really can't wait to meet her in person. And I'll be on her Facebook Live on May 5 as well. Adriana Trigiani is the New York Times bestselling author of 18 books in fiction and non fiction, which have been published in 38 languages around the world. She is an award winning playwright, television writer, and producer and filmmaker. She wrote and directed the film version of her debut novel Big Stone Gap, which was shot entirely on location in her Virginia hometown. Her screen adaptation of Very Valentine debuted on Lifetime television in June 2019. Adriana directed the feature film Then Came You starring Craig Ferguson and Cathy Lee Gifford filmed on location in Scotland. The film was released in October 2020 debuting as the number one comedy in America. Adriana is the co founder of the Origin Project, an in school writing program that serves more than 1,700 students in Appalachia, where she's from. Adriana is at work on her next novel for Dutton at Penguin Random House for release in 2021 and a children's picture book for Viking at Penguin Random House for release in 2021. And I think I actually forgot to ask her about those things, so I guess we'll just have to learn more some other way. Adriana hosts a weekly Facebook Live show, Adriana Inc, every Tuesday evening at 6PM featuring guest authors, giveaways, and more. Join her on Facebook and Instagram at Adriana Trigiani. Adriana lives in Greenwich Village with her family. Welcome, Adriana. Thank you so much for coming on moms don't have time to read books. I love this show.

[5:32]Adriana Trigiani: I adore you, and I'm ready to rock and roll. How about how's that for Pep?

[5:38]Zibby Owens: Early in the morning. That's awesome. I needed it, and I love it. I'm all yours, baby. Hold up Reunion Beach again and show people who are watching on YouTube. Oh, yes. Anyway, let's see. This beautiful cover. Okay. So Reunion Beach, this project really honestly, like, moved me so deeply. The fact that you well, you know what? Why don't you explain the project to listeners and then I'll weigh in on all my thoughts. There was once upon a time, she's been gone now over a year, Dorothea Benton Frank, known to everybody as Dottie.

[6:09]Adriana Trigiani: And she was a huge bestseller. Her last book Queen Bee rocketed to the top. It got to number two, which was huge. And you know how the bestseller lists work. It can, you know, it's luck of the draw kind of sometimes, but she was a force of nature, elegant, funny, body, loved her husband, loved her kids, loved her new grandson and her daughter, Victoria, who is included in here. She is an author also, Victoria Benton Frank wrote the most beautiful love letter to her mom in here. Look, it took us by surprise. She was young. That was the first thing you need to know Zibby is that she was too young to go, which I am fascinated by people who live like they know. Now Dottie didn't think she was gonna die and she didn't know she was gonna die and she got a bad illness very quickly, but I love when women live like they don't have any time to waste. Like the time wasted is the worst thing, which is why of course I think what you're doing is so extraordinary because we don't have time. We must write our books. We must put even while we're raising kids, you know, and it's part of the pact we have to make with ourselves and one another. And Dotty was front and center on that. She was very encouraging of other writers. I never laughed so hard in my life when I met her, when we would do events together, there's a great event down in Charleston that I wanna get you to call the Courier Book and Author Luncheon, which Robbie Scott hosts. And then she, Dottie co hosted. And with Dottie gone now she asked me to co host it, which I'm very proud to do. I can't fill her shoes. I can't be Dottie, but we'll do the best we can and do it in her memory. So this book was written by friends of hers, also her editor, Carrie Fair and approached different authors to be a part of it. So of course we have the great Ellen Hildebrand. And I wrote about when Dottie passed away, I did an op ed about her in my favorite newspaper, the Richmond Times Dispatch out of Richmond, Virginia, and which got incredible response because Dottie was so beloved. Charleston, South Carolina is what you need to know. That she was born and raised there. So you got Ellen Hildebrand, you have Patty Callahan and she's Patty Callahan Henry, she's now Patty Callahan, Mary Alice Monroe. And I just wanna tell you some more of the folks involved because it's pretty incredible. They really, I have to give it to Carrie. She really gathered the best of the best. Cassandra King Conroy, that's Pat Conroy's widow, but she is Cassandra King, a great novelist in her own right. Mary Norris, Jacqueline Bouvier Lee, Gervais Hagerty, Marjorie Wentworth, and Natalie Dupree. Also

[8:52]Zibby Owens: buttoned with her son and daughter's essays and something from her husband, Peter. Well, the book, I I didn't know Dottie, and I was hoping to get to know her. I had just been pitched Queen Bee for my podcast. And before anything could happen, like, it was still on my shelf. And I was like, what? That's the author I was gonna interview. So I didn't know her personally. I'm sad not to have gotten a chance to meet her. However, reading this book, I feel like I I would recognize her if she passed me on the street right now. Like, I feel like I would know her I know her deeply. I feel like you guys collectively got to a you painted a picture of a complete person in a way that you can only really get if you sit in on someone's memorial service. Right? Which I always, like I don't know. I love I mean, that sounds creepy to say. I love going to memorial service. Funeral person too.

[9:42]Adriana Trigiani: I can't believe you're a memorial I love them too. I love memorial service. Well, I feel do you feel cleansed after them? I feel renewed.

[9:50]Zibby Owens: I literally at the beginning, my husband, when we were still dating, he's like, how many of these do you go to a year? Because I'm like, wait. The mom of this girl I went to nursery school died, and I haven't seen her since, like, nineteen eighty something, but, like, I remember her, so we're gonna go. And he's like, okay. But then you you hear it's I mean, it's it's sort of back to storytelling. Right? It's like you hear the story of someone's life. So true. That's so true. And this story was just a memorial service in a book and was such a tribute to her. And I loved, by the way, your essay in it. Oh my gosh. You're so funny. First of all, what you said earlier about her book being number two on the bestseller list, which was, like, part of the joke in the essay itself where you recreate Pat Conroy meeting Dottie in heaven with, like I mean, it's so funny. Tell me about like so so they said write an essay. How how did you come up with that format to do it as this like, you know, scene from heaven out of one of those, you know, nineteen eighties heaven type movies, heaven can wait and all those? Well, first, you know, you gotta hear the voices. So Pat Conroy's voice is very clear to me. I never met Pat,

[10:55]Adriana Trigiani: spoke with Pat, Pat blurbed, endorsed, I hate that word, blurbed, endorsed our family cookbook because we're, I'm raised in Appalachia. So he's Southern and so that all folded in. So Pat came to me in a wave and I know his wife and I loved her. And I was at an event with her. I want to get you on the road with us because that's when the really the rubber hits the road. When you start doing these luncheons and things, because they're really, I mean, you meet people and you have a ball. So met Cassandra in Florida and then Julia Reed. Do you know Julia Reed? Only no. Okay. Julia Reed. Yeah. Probably by reputation, but she's in the essay as well because she passed away while I was writing it. So I thought they are a trio. They're all Southern, they are in different genres, so to speak. And Julia Reid's voice is so clear to me because I went to lunch with her several times. I endorsed one of her books and I said, you know, this is a movie. And so we started having lunches with movie people, which was really great. So Julia Reed was at Vogue for many years. She did a lot of television. She was a great writer and interviewer and journalist of the great people of the century. Easiest way I can say it. And very elegant and very funny. They all share humor. So when I went to write it, I'm a dramatist, you know, that's how I started. I'm a playwright and I write, you know, I adapt my stuff for, or anyone else's for movies and film and television. So I said, why don't I write kind of almost a play? And then the postcard idea came to me because I don't know if you're like this, but I tuck stuff. I see all your beautiful books. I put things in my books. So when I go to get it again, there's a surprise in there for me. It could be my great grandmother's Christmas card. It could be a picture of a friend. It could be a letter I received. I hate to throw out letters, but as you know, and I think you're from a pretty big family, it's like, it really gets to be, how many confirmation cards am I gonna keep? So I stuck them in books. So that became the idea. And that's how I came up with postcards from heaven. So those little things you find when you're in your house, this was my mom's, this is the prayer to St. Francis. I keep it on my desk. So that reminds me of my mom. Well, that's the impetus of it. So those little things you find will remind you of Dottie and Will, look, do you see that big diamond back there? Know we wanted him to get it, but okay. When I met her at Books Expo and we can't remember the year, we always just pretended like we knew each other for a hundred years because that's what it felt like. She'd send me videos of people. She was always, I wore the lipstick that she was wearing when on her last tour, she'd pick a lipstick and this was Brazenberry nine zero three because when you're on a book tour, sometimes you leave your lipstick in the hotel room, which I've done many times. So I had to go get it. And so she wanted this color where she made ladies all over America. She bought like, I don't know, 12 and gave them away. And you know, this color doesn't work on everybody. For some people it looks terrible, right? They said, Dottie, these girls don't look good in this color. She says, they think they do. Now I wanna try it. That's her. So she sent me that because I said to her when I met her, she was wearing a giant diamond ring from her beloved husband, Peter, you know, she always bragged about him listening. She said, we still get it on and he's got a full head of hair. And I just was like, are you kidding me? That's so funny you say that because But we like people who get it We

[14:12]Zibby Owens: like married people who get it on. Okay. Came through, by the way, in the book. I was like, okay. Yeah. That totally came through both of their discussions on, like, their passionate relationship. And, you know, I was like, I feel like I can read between the lines here. What's going on?

[14:26]Adriana Trigiani: Well, someday you'll talk to Victoria Betten Frank and she will tell you. I mean, they were not shy about saying it. And she said, you know, it was up to her a lot of the time because her husband's tired, she's tired, do whatever. So that's just a little tip from Dottie from heaven, she's over my shoulder. But I loved her diamond. It was the biggest thing I ever saw and it kind of blinded me and I said, give me that diamond. And she sent me the next day FedEx, this lumpy FedEx came. By the way, she never used regular mail, always FedExed. Dottie, it's expensive. I don't care. I know you're gonna get it the next day. She sent me that big diamond paperweight.

[14:57]Zibby Owens: I love that. Oh my gosh. I love the idea that they also were sitting around wait, first of all, I'm gonna start putting stuff in my books now because that's a genius idea and I don't do that and I wish I did. All I find when I look back is like notes that I take sometimes or like Well, my notes are in there too. Keep doing your notes. That's a good thing. That's it. That's your real bibliophile when you do that. But I'm telling you when you find

[15:24]Adriana Trigiani: just a sweet secret thing, you know, in a book and you can't really see it, but anyway, people, you get a note, fan letters, you know, a fan letter, somebody writing to you say they love your show. They love, you know, moms don't have time to, and you you'll in ten years you'll at it and go, oh my gosh. You know, it makes you feel I have a file. And also it talks to you. Your books speak to you in a certain way when you do this. I love that. I feel like the books speak to, I don't know. I feel like just scanning all the books, everything like brings up all the characters. Like, it's like I'm surrounded by people and it sounds so ridiculous, but Do you find Zibby, do you find when you say, oh, I've gotta I've gotta like like I gotta find my well, I'm gonna throw somebody out here, Toni Morrison.

[16:09]Zibby Owens: Do you know right where she is? I used to, but then I redid all this in February, right after I had COVID. I like took every book in this room and like, I felt like I had to touch every book after getting out of bed after nine days. And then I did this whole thing to make it look rainbow. So now I no longer know exactly, but I did for years. I knew everything. So now I'm like getting to know it again, but I know basically. You know basically where stuff is. Well, you of course, when you adjust to the new system you'll, but I can, somebody will say to me, I'll be talking to somebody and go, hang on. I know where that book is. The other day I had to find Harriet the Spy and I knew right where it was. Even though

[16:44]Adriana Trigiani: I don't want to tell you how many books are here. It's like the public library. I want to see it. I'm going to come. Oh yeah, you're coming over. I'm like doing the whole, I'm going to do an actual library room because here's what's happened. I collect so many books that I found treasures really like signed books, just, you know, when Tommy DiPalo died, had to be My mother used to buy Stregan Nona for all grandchildren. Yeah. She loved that too. So, and she wrote in it to my daughter. And so then I have him separate

[17:13]Zibby Owens: signed and her, it's that stuff. I'll show you everything. Wow. Oh my gosh. I can't wait. Wait. I wanna say one more thing about your story. And then I want to hear more about how you even got to where you are today and like, you know, all of that. The idea that they were sitting around talking about their deaths. Like, this is the one thing that you cannot ever commiserate and share with other people about. Did you have an easy death? Did you have a hard death? Was yours fast? Was yours slow? Mine was kind of fast. Oh, mine was slow. Like, it's the only thing that we can't be like you can only have like maybe a glimmer like, oh, this is it. Like, cause I feel like I've had those glimmers many times and then like, you know, the plane stabilized or, you know, everything was fine or whatever. Right. But there's only that second. Anyway, I just thought the idea that like you could sit, it would be so nice. It would just be so nice if you could all reunite in that way. So anyway, I love that.

[18:06]Adriana Trigiani: I love the reuniting too. But you know, when Dotty was dying, I mean, here's the story. I get a text from her. Now, you know, this social media stuff. I'm so in terms of like Instagram was new to it a year ago, I'm still pretty new to it. Okay. Facebook I'm little bit better with because I do Facebook live, but even there, Zippy, I have no idea. Okay. If I talk to you, I'm talking to you. That's how I look at it, right? So I get this text from Dottie and says, are you here? So I texted her back. I say, yeah. She said, well, you're in Italy, right? Now I said to her, no, now this is not the last summer, but the summer before, okay? So say to her, Dottie, that's a virtual tour that I did. Like I go to Italy and I see my family and I take movies and things, and then we made it into a story, but I wasn't there, was here. She said, I'm in the hospital. Where? And we went into the whole thing. So we share an agent, Suzanne Gluck from William Morris Endeavor. I always like to say that because she of course can use it. Really needs me to like promote her anyway. So I say, okay, Dottie, I'm coming. So I got dressed and I'm in the cab and I get a call from my agent, Suzanne, who's also my friend and says, don't come, she's having a problem. And I said, all right, I turned around and came home. I started texting Victoria. Victoria was overwhelmed. Victoria was very pregnant. You're gonna love her. She's hilarious and she's brilliant. So I said, okay, I'll come another day. And this really bothers me. Gotta tell you still to this day because there was a second time I said, I'm going and I just got dressed and I got there and the same thing happened. I gotta call, don't come. But then when it was all, when Dottie went through her journey to the other side, everything fell into place and made sense. She was with her daughter. She was with her husband, she was with her son and her daughter-in-law. She was with the people she wanted to be with. So I would just sit here and pray to her and just go, Hey, Dottie, know, listen, I'm here and whatever you need. So yeah, yeah, it was rough. That was rough. But she was not about death, she was about living. And that's why I thought to put her in a bar with Pat Conroy. Because all we ever did was talk, make jokes about, you know, cocktails and things like that, you know, wherever, you know, when you're in a book tour and you can't get a drink, that's really rich when you can't have a glass of wine and you're like, and I've got pink, I've got red. She'll tell you, she would tell you all these great, crazy stories. So, you know, it was a highly charged time, but her transition, but Victoria will tell you it was also very peaceful. And she finally went, oh, okay, all right, this is what this is gonna be. She was a person of faith. She had a deep faith. She would never call herself religious, don't think, spiritual,

[20:56]Zibby Owens: but she was religious too, believe. Wow. Well, she was lucky to call you a friend and all of you guys did a beautiful job, truly. Was amazing. Think everybody deserves a book like this. Yeah. I you do. You said that and I love that that you think that isn't this a great idea though for everybody to do should do this because you can't always go to people's memorial services and it's not like people record them so you can watch them usually. But then you miss getting to know that person. I mean, how hard would it be? Just everybody should have before you die or, like, everybody today should just email, like, the six to eight people they wanna have essays written by and say, okay. Like Say it right now. Get ready when I die. You're one of my essay writers. I'll never be able to prove it, but, know, you could send it ahead of time if you want.

[21:42]Adriana Trigiani: And be aspirational. Pick Zadie Smith. See if she'll write it. I'm gotta pick your baby Okay.

[21:50]Zibby Owens: Back to you for two seconds. How did you become who you are today? Like, where did you get your start with professionally? Let's just go there. How did you start being a writer and getting into all the different content areas, film and I mean, everything you do, it's amazing.

[22:07]Adriana Trigiani: How did you how did you start and how did it grow? Okay. First of all, I grew up in a place that I call them the best people who were the Appalachian people in the coal mining region of Virginia, in the Southwest Corner, it's called Far Southwest Virginia. And it borders Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, West Virginia, Virginia. That's your little hub there. Did I say Tennessee? That's also in there. So we lived in and my dad was in, you'll appreciate this, the Shmata business, he had his parents. We were all on that side of the family. Interesting, it's all sartorial garment manufacturers. And my grandmother on the other side was a seamstress and my grandfather was a shoemaker, everybody Italian immigrants. Okay, so I'm completely Italian. How do you say that? I don't know. Both sides of Stanley Tucci says, love it. Okay. So my dad gets this during, the late sixties, they had this thing called the war on poverty program and Appalachia was from Southern New York all the way down to Georgia. That it still is, I mean, what am I saying? The Appalachian Trail. And if you study American history, you know that every important art form and tech and emanated from Appalachia on some level. Usually, you know, if we're talking about music, it's the African American that became the bluegrass that became soul that became as we know. Okay. Rock and roll all came out of there. And yet the Appalachian people are very maligned. We're called hillbillies, hill jacks, you know, you know, the names. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

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[26:00]Adriana Trigiani: And as Italian Americans and Roman Catholics that lived there, there weren't a lot of Catholics. There was one Jewish family. We did Seder every year together during Passover. It was fantastic. So it was that kind of an upbringing, okay? I would call it not only diverse, of enchanted and interesting and different, okay? So it starts there. They were very already in that, in my town, Big Stone Gap, they had an outdoor drama, which I never was in, but like idolized it, but they had a town musical and I worked on the crew and I'd be in the chorus and actually got interested in that because they would cast my brother, I have a younger brother, Carlo, who could sing. And so that kind of got me into the theater, but I liked the director and I would want, they get like these fancy directors, like a guy with a fight, where'd he come from? And he committed, he direct like the local women, right? And men. And so they did the great, the canon, the Rogers and Hammerstein canon. And the star in every show was Barbara Polly, who was just a great lady, just a great lady. And she started the outdoor drama, you know, it's a small town. So that led me to playwriting. I began as a poet, which it might be the worst career there is, except now with Amanda Gorman, it's better. I mean, the word spreading, but you know, I knew of the great poets like Rita Dove and Mickey Giovanni and, you know, the Southern or Midwestern, I was big fans of theirs. So I would write poetry and the poetry wasn't great, but when I got to St. Mary's, I was determined to be a theater major because I knew I was gonna, I wanted to direct and then you have to study all the disciplines. And it had a great co department with Notre Dame. It was a terrific department. And I got to write and direct on the main stage, like the professionals. I became professional like at 19. So I could write a play. So then I won a prize and I went, okay, I can go to New York and make this work. And when I got to New York, I started a comedy troupe and we were on called the Outcast Girls. And we were on the circuit for seven years and I was broke. Sylvia, I was so broke. And you know, you don't even know anybody you can borrow money from. I was an office temp at Merrill Lynch, which I was very bad at, but I always said I was worth every penny at $6 an hour. I worked in a movie theater and I got fired from there because I kept breaking the letters. Do you remember Cinema Village over at the, that was my theater. Yes, I totally remember that. And a friend of mine said, you know, because I was having trouble finding a nice boyfriend and he said, you know, if you sold tickets over there, you're well lit under glass. And I couldn't make change, oh, it was a disaster. And then I kept breaking the letters and the owner of the theater said to me, you know, those letters are more expensive than what you're paying and you have to go. You know, you had to use a, nobody knew how to do, I never knew that they put it on a stick and stuck it up there and you'd have to slide it in. It was like an Olympic feat. Anyway, got canned from there, but I had jobs, I was a nanny. I did all these jobs as I was writing plays and screenplays. Then I sold a screenplay in Hollywood. I had an Off Broadway production at Manhattan theater club starring Camille Saviola called Secrets of the Lava Lamp that got where Mel Gassow kicked my Heine, which was great. You wanna get your Heine kicked by him. Then I got a job in television and then it took off on a different world. Do you remember different Yes, of course. With Jack and Guy and yeah, yeah, All those guys love them. I still love them. And I tried to cast them whenever I can. Then I know this sounds crazy, but every ten years, look at your life. Some people say seven, it's more biblical. I do seven, but 10, it takes me ten to like get the job done, but I just keep reinventing and saying, what else do I want to accomplish? So once I did the playwriting and I did that, I knew I would always be those things, but then I wrote for TV and I didn't watch TV when I was growing up, I was a reader. We didn't get good reception down in those mountains. So that led me to being a really a full time dramatist in television and film. And I wrote for A Different World, Good Sports with Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neill, Bill Persky, one of my great, he's family to me, still honorary dad, brother, everything. He's the greatest. He created Kate and Alley and That Girl. And I worked with him on a show with Jane Kirk. Then I did a special for Lifetime. You see how it worked. It just all sort of, and I'm very proud of City Kids. Do you remember City Kids? No, sorry. I'm gonna make it, you kids need to watch it. It's still Quran. We did it in 1993 with the City Kids Foundation and Jim Henson. So I worked for that company and I love them very much too. So I had all these things, I did pilots and then I made a documentary film and the documentary film won the audience award in the Hamptons and Palm Springs, which led me to see every ten years led me to this gentleman who ran the shooting gallery that had just done Sling Blade. So then I said, well, I have this idea called Big Stone Gap. And he said, well, what is it? And I told him this idea. And then I wrote the screenplay and then my friend Suzanne read it and said, you know what, this is a book. Can you write a novel? And I was like, no, no. Well, it was at my ten year mark. And I went, I'll try. So it took a couple of years and then I delivered it and sold and now we're 20 books in. Oh my gosh. So Zippy, this is my thing. Whatever you're doing, I don't, I'm speaking to the choir here because I could just tell by what you're doing. You know, we have a mutual dear friend, Christina Geist, you know, and I called her about you and I said, Hey, tell me what do think? She loves you. I love her too. She's nice. And I said, I think what she's doing is fantastic. And I think it's important. And I think it's gonna lead you to roads you never imagined for yourself. And that's what this is all about. And by the way, think about it. Every children's book you read to your kids was written by a woman. I mean, you got Mo Willems and some of our friends Tommy Powell, but you know, they Pippi Longstocking, Heidi. Well, consider Jane Eyre that was on the cusp. I read it when I was 11, but those books are all, this is a great gift to women. This profession publishing.

[31:54]Zibby Owens: Did I talk too much yet? No, I loved it. It was amazing. You're amazing. I like adore you and I, this is like- Mutual baby. It's just so exciting. I'm so impressed with that idea that you can constantly reinvent yourself. Mean, and as you said, yes, this has already taken me in like a thousand directions. Never knew That's what I wanted to do. And you know, when I talk to authors, I say, you

[32:17]Adriana Trigiani: created the world, learn how to direct movies, would you please? Now, listen, I take to it because I'm a dramatist, okay? So I was destined to direct because I directed plays and I love actors and I know how to do that, right? They always say to me, how'd you get that cast? That's not the deal. You have to create a family with those actors and they've gotta all be in the same movie. And I'm not gonna tell you it hasn't been a struggle, it's a struggle, but it's gonna change for our kids, which is thrills me. They'll be dead and they'll be directing. That's what I want. And I say this to authors all the time, can you do it? I want you to go home and sleep on it. If you want to come and follow me around or call Steven Spielberg, want, can I follow you around? You know what? They'll say yes, but you've got to learn how to do it. And people are cowed by the technical. You learn that so the hard part is the emotions. The hard part is making that actor and empowering that beautiful actor to give what he or she has got to the story. That's the part that's important. Then you get Ray Villalobos, you just get a great cinematographer. It's a very intimate relationship, I will say that. But I put this, this is what, look how yellow, look at this is sad. Look how yellow, I have to turn the lights on. Yeah. Oh, it's upside down. Okay, so this has been on my desk for years also. This is from Federico Fellini. Everybody will try and scare you with technique. First freaking thing they did because, know, you work with a producers come and go. To you, to them, you are a project that could happen or not happen. To you, I'm making this happen. So if they're not interested after a while, you just go, hey, I don't think you're into this. You've had this project for years and you haven't done anything with it. And they'll say, we called people. Well, get it done. So listen, the biggest thing is Big Stone Gap got it done. And it's beautiful movie. Everybody would try to scare you with technique, but don't let them intimidate you. You wanna tell the story like you're telling it to a friend. Think about that. You're creating a movie like I'm telling you this story, almost like a joke. How you tell a joke, right? If you're a good storyteller, you will be able to do it. But if you don't have that talent, all the technique in the world won't help you. Federico Fellini. Okay, so the point is you write a book, you created a world. Now you have to figure how to dramatize that world. And I should throw this out because I have to give her credit. I was a theater major, had great professors. I moved to New York and I threw a couple of girls that were, everybody was starting theater companies and I would be like the person that went in and said, okay, I'll write your play for you. And there was a playwright, there was an acting company that needed a playwright, so they picked me. And this is through my friend, Becky Bruder Neustadt. I met the great director, George Keith Lee. Now that he won Emmys for television, being a television director of the soaps in New York. But prior to that, he directed the first stuff of Tennessee Williams. This was this robust, gorgeous man. And then he went on to be the, like the artistic director at Kansas City. And I went and did a play out there for them. So he reads my plays and he sits me down and I listen, I'm like 22 years old, I'm like a baby. And he says, you know what, you got talent, but you need help. I was like, okay. He said, I'm gonna send you to somebody. And I thought, oh God. And he said, Ruth Getz. And I went like this, Ruth Getz, wife of Augustus Getz, they created The Heiress, they wrote The Heiress together and then adapted the screenplay. And I knew everything about Ruth Getz, which was sort of hilarious. Okay. So he said, she'll call you. Living at a boarding house on 10th Street called Milbank House. And there's one phone on each floor. Okay, you're talking about this is the eighties, right? You were little. I was little. I was young. Go over there and the phone rings and it's her and she says, I want you to come 9AM sharp to such and such and such East 50 Something Street for gardening lessons. So for the next seven years, I went there and she ripped everything I wrote apart. Oh my gosh, I learned from her. To this day I have friends call me. What would Ruth have said? And I said, Oh, she said she had like essential rules, which eventually all right, I'll die and they'll be gone. But she was so great. And I come from a family that's very loud and bombastic and my father was very strict. So when people are very direct with me, it doesn't count me. I kinda like have to decipher what what do they want me to do? So that that was that. I rambled on again, but No. That's okay. I think she would like to be your neighbor up there. She's now in heaven. Amazing. I could talk to you all day. I know. Let's continue in person at some point. But thank you so much for coming on mom's no time to read books. Thank you for this ridiculously fun conversation that just, like, set my day off on on the right path. And thank you for talking about Reunion Beach, which was amazing. Everybody read it, get it. It's a great I I think it'd be beautiful for mother's day based on what Victoria wrote to her mother. But as you know, they're the all the stories are wonderful and it's great people and you'll love it. Perfect. Thank you so much. I'll see you on my thing. Okay. I'll see you on your thing. Can't wait. Okay. Bye.

[37:38]Zibby Owens: and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.